


Part 3: Lil

by kw20742



Series: Something Like Love [4]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Canon Lesbian Character, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Explicit Language, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 22:05:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15591717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kw20742/pseuds/kw20742
Summary: Scene continuation from 2.3, immediately after Ben brings Jocelyn home after her car accident.As for other parts of this series, I have adopted as part of my head canon the lovely “Moments in Time” by spilled_notes.





	Part 3: Lil

**Author's Note:**

> Scene continuation from 2.3, immediately after Ben brings Jocelyn home after her car accident.
> 
> As for other parts of this series, I have adopted as part of my head canon the lovely “Moments in Time” by spilled_notes.

Collapsing onto her own staircase, the latent panic Jocelyn managed to suppress in front of Ben has finally gripped her, and thoughts of what could have happened turning onto that wet road to Broadchurch and how incredibly lucky she is not to have been injured (or killed) have caused her to shake quite violently. This, she muses, is what absolute isolation feels like. She has no parents to hug, no partner to make her a cup of tea. Not even a bloody cat. She is utterly alone in this house on the top of Briar Cliff, and, on any given day, no one would notice or care if she fell down in the shower and broke her wrist. Or her head.

How did this become her life? How many times in the last fifteen years could she have made different choices, accepted help and friendship and kindness from others, revealed her vulnerability, not been so infuriatingly stubborn and proud? Or just plain terrified?

Thinking simply that she needs someone to talk to, to help calm her down, she dials the only number that will do, but hangs up before the call goes through. She tosses the phone away as if it’s scalded her fingers. It bounces once and lands face down on the step below where she’s sitting. What could she be thinking?! It’s past midnight, and what’s Maggie going to do for her now in any case?

 

***

 

Across town, a bleary-eyed Maggie is jolted from a restless half-sleep by the unexpected cacophony of several shrill, unrelenting beeps coming from somewhere in the stack of newspapers, magazines and books on her nightstand. “Oh, bollocks,” she moans, inadvertently knocking most everything to the floor in her attempt to stay the harsh noises before they can wake the woman sleeping next to her.

By the time she rescues her work phone from underneath yesterday’s edition of _The Guardian_ , it’s on ring number five, and she’s disturbed Lil anyway. “Sorry. Thought I turned it off,” she mumbles grumpily.

Lil silently caresses the small of Maggie’s back in a quiet gesture of patient forbearance. These ungodly interruptions have occurred with increasing frequency since Danny Latimer’s death, and she’s almost gotten used to it. Almost. Refusing to actually acknowledge being awake, she curls more deeply into Maggie’s warmth and simply waits for a return to silence so she can drift back to sleep.

Maggie doesn’t recognize the number, but it’s local. “Broadchurch _Echo_ , Maggie Radcliffe.”

“Oh! Hi. Uhm… It’s Ben, Ben Haywood? I work with Jocelyn?”

“Yeah, sorry,” she snorts, “I got you into _that_ one, didn’t I?” She’s not quite awake enough yet to register that it’s odd for Ben to be ringing her up at all, let alone at this hour of the night. She glances at the digital display of her alarm clock and mentally corrects herself: Morning.

Ben clears his throat. “Yes, well. I’m terribly sorry to call so late. I got this number off the _Echo_ ’s website. I expected to leave a message. I need your help…”

By this time, it’s occurred to Maggie that the only thing connecting her to this keen young barrister is Jocelyn, and she is suddenly wide awake, shifting up and onto her side, effectively propelling a drowsing Lil across the bed in the process. “Shit! What’s happened?!”

“What the _hell_ , Mags?!” Having been officially jolted awake, Lil hoists herself up on one elbow and fires off a series of questions in rapid succession. “Who _is_ that? Is it Olly? What’s going on?”

Maggie holds up a hand: Give me a second.

Ben continues, “Jocelyn was in an accident. Driving home about an hour ago. Went into a ditch and hit a tree.”

“Oh, fuck...”

“I tried to take her to hospital. Just to be sure she’s not hurt. Might have whiplash or something. But she won’t go. Thought maybe you’d have better luck?”

“Right. Thanks. I’ll sort it.” She rings off. This is bad on so many levels, and Ben doesn’t know the half of it.

“What’s going on?” Lil asks, reaching for Maggie’s shoulder.

“I have to go.”

"What? _Where?_!” Lil hoists herself up and grabs her own phone off the top of the headboard. “It’s, what, half-midnight?” she asks incredulously, squinting at the display’s harsh glare. 12.48. It’s later than she thought.

Maggie is already up, hurriedly stripping off pyjamas, grabbing a pair of socks from the top dresser drawer, and lifting street clothes off the hook on the back of the bedroom door. She does a mental inventory: pants, socks, shirt. She doesn’t even bother with a bra. Who’s going to see her on the short drive between here and Jocelyn’s anyway? And where the bloody hell did she leave her personal cell phone?

“Mags, tell me what the fuck is happening, please.” Lil’s quiet, peaceful slumber, made even more delightfully restful by the soft salty breeze coming in through the open windows (she has to admit: you don’t get air like this in Exeter), has been replaced by the frantic, buzzing energy of Maggie’s brilliant mind whirling, spinning a narrative to which only she is privy. Lil hates when she does this; she feels shut out and utterly tangential.

“Jocelyn’s been in an accident.”

“Ah.” Lil’s genuine concern about whatever Maggie heard from whoever was on the other end of the line just now turns decidedly chilly. It’s not that she’s heartless; she really wouldn’t wish anything horrible to happen to anyone. Not even Jocelyn. Truly. Even though Lil is of the strong opinion (and she has shared this with Maggie on more than one occasion) that Maggie is a much better friend to Jocelyn than Jocelyn’s ever been to her. Still though, she doesn’t wish the other woman ill.

She can’t say the same, however, for one of her most irritatingly sexist colleagues, whom she repeatedly wishes would come down with a terrible cold. Snot everywhere and a raging sore throat would be too good for him. But that’s it. That’s the limit of her utterly benign cruelty. She’s the proud daughter of socialist peace activist parents, and she tries to be a good person. Still, though, she’s not entirely sure why Jocelyn Knight having been in an accident merits disturbing their sleep. “Is she alright?”

“Don’t know.” Maggie excavates her non-work cell phone from underneath the toppled pile of books, checks to see that it’s charged, and slips it into the pocket of her slacks. She catches Lil’s disapproving scowl, and it occurs to her just at the last minute to say, “I won’t be long.”

With that, Maggie’s gone. Lil hears her snatch her coat from its hook in the little foyer and the jingle of hastily grabbed car keys. The front door opens and closes, the car engine comes to life, and gravel crunches under tires backing out of the driveway and onto the road up to Briar Cliff.

Fuck. Lil exhales, leaning back against the headboard. There it is again. That menacing gnaw in the pit of her stomach. It’s been more and more frequent, increasingly insistent since the Miller trial began. Since Maggie’s been spending her time with the smart and stunning QC, returned from on high to South Wessex.

And it’s not like she doesn’t know that there had previously been something between them. Maggie mentioned it once, a few months after she and Lil had started dating. It was the first full weekend Lil spent with Maggie in Broadchurch, and it was glorious. She was between terms, the weather was the stuff tourists’ dreams are made on, and they were sharing a packet of chips down by the harbour. They were laughing when she noticed Maggie notice, at quite a fair distance, a glamorous older woman walking briskly away from them, towards Harbour Cliff Beach. When Lil asked about her, Maggie didn’t hesitate to tell her the basics: Jocelyn Knight. Not only a barrister, but a silk. Broadchurch native, lived and worked in London until she retired two years ago. They saw each other off and on for a few months more than a decade ago. It wasn’t serious, and, although they remain casual friends, whatever was between them has been over for a long time.

Lil had no reason at the time not to take Maggie’s account at face value. They were both women over fifty, with two lifetimes of experience between them. Their combined who-knows-how-many former crushes, flings, lovers, and partners were hardly worth writing home about. They’d both been out since university, both invested and embedded and in various progressive activist movements for decades; it’s really a wonder they hadn’t ever met before last year. The lesbian feminist circle of elders is minuscule, and you’re bound, at some point, to run into someone your current lover used to date. Especially this far from the anonymity of London.

Since the Miller trial started, though, Maggie’s been… Different. Distant. Preoccupied. Even more so than during the police investigation and media frenzy last year, after the discovery of a dead boy on a rural Dorset beach. Lil knows she’s been exceptionally busy at work lately as a result not only of the trial, but also of all the changes corporate is making from above, and without consultation, to how the _Echo_ functions. Shit rolls down hill. But there’s something else going on.

Lil thought herself quite lucky last year _not_ to live in Broadchurch. She felt terrible for the family, of course, but Maggie was, quite literally, _always_ working. Incredibly long hours. All. The. Bloody. Time. Even on Lil’s weekend visits, which were supposed to be time for just the two of them. Maggie could never make the journey over to Devon to visit Lil; something always came up at the last minute. The town was crawling with regional and national media, and then after Maggie got that bloody homophobic rape threat, Lil’s dormant distaste for this conservative backwater hell hole well and truly peaked.

That’s when she started pressing Maggie to move to hers in Exeter. Maggie had been talking about retiring anyway, and it only made sense to Lil for her to move to the much bigger city. Not only could they be together, without Lil having to get into her car and drive two hours every Thursday after classes, but there were more like-minded people. A vibrant LGBTQ+ community. An independent feminist bookshop. Theatre, museums, a major research university. At which Lil has tenure – and quite a few years yet before she’s eligible for retirement.

But Maggie keeps putting it off. Putting _her_ off.

And Lil has to be honest with herself here, too: the not-quite-right feeling in the pit of her stomach was there even before the Miller trial began. Maggie had warned her when they first got together about the late nights and hastily cancelled plans that came with dating a journalist. She also joked about the large wine bills. But Lil hoped they’d be clear of all the unforeseen chaos after the hearing: Joe would plead guilty, justice would be served, and she and Maggie could pick up where they left off. They could go back to walks on the pier, rainy day browses in out-of-the-way antique shops, and laughter over packets of chips on the Boardwalk.

But Joe didn’t plead guilty, and now there’s the trial. And Lil has grown tired of spending evenings alone in a house that’s not hers, in a town she doesn’t even like. She’s tired of driving back and forth between Exeter and Broadchurch, trying to squeeze in a relationship between endless trips on the A-35. And on top of all that, it’s become quite clear in these last few weeks that Maggie’s deeply in love with someone else. And has been. For quite some time.

 

***

 

As Maggie eases the car into the driveway, she notices the light in the vestibule is on, so Jocelyn likely hasn't gone upstairs yet. She touches her finger to the bell as quickly and softly as she can. She listens. Nothing. So she tries again with three short, insistent pushes that are much more true to her current feelings. Still nothing. She tries the handle; it’s unlocked.

Maggie lets herself in to the glass-paned vestibule and can’t help but note, not for the first time (although she’s not as familiar with the rooms on this side of the house), that this delightful little space, too, is chock full of flowering pot plants and alluring books. She and Jocelyn have always shared a passion for reading, although their tastes are a quite different. But Maggie has learned recently that she also appreciates Jocelyn’s apparent preference for hyacinth and lavender – as well as her ability to keep them alive. She must’ve learnt how from her mum. By contrast, Maggie could easily run her own plant hospice. This small room, with its west facing windows, would be such a lovely place to curl up on a cold winter day with a favourite novel and a cup of tea. But not tonight.

She knocks quite gently on the wooden door that empties into the inner front hall. “Jocelyn?” she asks quietly, belying her anxiety and concern. The light from the hall spills under the door, further confirmation that Jocelyn is still awake, so she tries again, more tenaciously this time: “Jocelyn, for fuck’s sake, let me in!” Still nothing. She tries the handle; it, too, is unlocked.

She glances quickly to her right, into the moonlit darkness of the formal sitting room, but thinks it unlikely that Jocelyn would be in there. That’s not quite her style; she prefers the rooms at the back of the house. Because they face her beloved bay. So Maggie keeps moving forward, around to her left, toward the rooms she knows better.

“Oh, sweetheart!” she exclaims as she spies Jocelyn crumpled up on the stairs. Rushing to sit down beside her, Maggie takes her in her arms without hesitation. She can feel Jocelyn’s slender body, instantly wracked with sobs, melt into her, clutch onto her, desperate for human contact, for security and comfort. It’s simply heartbreaking.

She lets her cry it out. There’s much more at the back of all this than a tussle with a tree. That must certainly have been terrifying, but there’s only so much accumulated pain and regret and guilt and love and desire and anxiety and fear and anticipation and excitement and whatever else that any one person can keep under wraps before it all explodes. It’s true: Jocelyn is more adept at keeping tight control over her emotions than anyone Maggie’s ever met. Infuriatingly adept, in fact, to the mere mortals among us. But even she has to reach her limit eventually. And tonight’s misadventure seems to have finally done her in.

For Jocelyn’s part, she has never been so happy to see anyone in all her life. The one person she wanted to call, the only person that would do, is here. Right now. She holds Maggie to her as if her life depended on it. And, Jocelyn thinks, not for the first time, that maybe it does. Not literally, of course, but figuratively, in all the vibrant ways that make life actually worth living.

After more than a few minutes of hard crying, Jocelyn’s sobs turn to little sniffles. Maggie can almost imagine her as a little girl, pink lips curled into a dramatic frown, eyes red, blonde curls all asunder, crying into Veronica’s shoulder, perhaps even on this very step. It’s quite adorable, actually, and Maggie covers the grin playing at the corners of mouth by digging a crumpled coffee shop napkin out of her coat pocket. She jokes, “I promise it’s clean, just a bit worse for the wear.”

Jocelyn takes it gratefully and gently blows her nose. Then she asks simply, quite sincerely, as if in disbelief, “How are you still here? After all this time?”

Maggie knows the questions aren’t just about tonight, or even about the last three years since Jocelyn moved back to Broadchurch. They are embedded in a much longer, more fraught history than that. But she shrugs, still holding Jocelyn close, remembering for the first time in forever something one of her literature tutors told her back when she was at university, “Well, I guess some people are just meant to be in the same story.” She chuckles, adjusting their embrace so that she can look at Jocelyn squarely, shaking her head in mock sorrow, “And I’m afraid you got stuck with me.”

In spite of herself, Jocelyn manages a weak smile, and Maggie thus considers tonight’s work almost done, but for two things. First: “I came up here to give you a right bollocking, you know.”

“Well, go ahead, then,” urges Jocelyn, resigned.

Maggie shrugs, “I’ve lost the taste for it. But you were mad to drive at night, and you know it. The doctors were very clear.”

“I won’t do it again.” 

She expected a fight, but that she isn’t getting one is proof that Jocelyn was scared enough by the accident to have learnt her lesson. “Will you promise me?”

“I promise.”

“Right. Now. Are you hurt? Do we need to get you to hospital?”

“No. Really. I’m fine. Ben needn’t have called you.” Jocelyn makes a mental note to give him a stern talking to about privacy.

As if she’s read Jocelyn’s mind, though, Maggie instructs, “Don’t you go giving him a hard time about it. You can’t fault him for worrying about you. Were everyone as kind.”

Jocelyn scowls. He does have a good heart. After all, he did come and pick her up in the middle of the night from the side of the road.

“Come on, then,” Maggie demands, standing and stretching both hands out to take Jocelyn’s, “get up off that step, and prove it. Show me you can walk and move properly.”

“Maggie,” Jocelyn grumbles, refusing the offer of assistance as well as the notion that there’s anything wrong with her.

“Do it,” Maggie insists, taking her phone from her pocket, “or I’m calling an ambulance right now.”

Begrudgingly, Jocelyn rises, but emphatically _without_ Maggie’s help. Just to prove a point. She responds to Maggie’s impatiently raised eyebrows and pursed lips by half-heartedly moving about and twisting all her limbs. She feels rather like a puppet as she stretches and walks a few paces into and out of the dining room under Maggie’s observant gaze.

“No broken bones,” Maggie concludes. “Did you hit your head?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?" 

“Yes.”

Satisfied that Jocelyn seems to have emerged at least physically unscathed from her fight with the tree, Maggie decides: “Right. Tea.”

“Maggie, go home. I’m embarrassed enou—”

“Oh, shut up,” she demands, disappearing around the corner into the kitchen.

Accompanied by the soothingly domestic sounds of tea-making, Jocelyn finally takes off her coat, slides out of her pumps, and exchanges her work blazer for her comfy cranberry cardigan. It’s been a long, emotional day, and a cup of tea actually sounds perfect. She feels fairly ridiculous, but it really is amazing the effects of a good cry. She feels lighter somehow. Quieter. But it’s also made her want… Something. What is it?

She takes a breath deep into her belly and then exhales, grounding her stockinged feet into the plush carpet. The aching emptiness in her heart is met with an unexpectedly demanding rush of warmth deep in her core. She wants so much. She wants everything. She wants Maggie! Just Maggie. With her. On top of her. All over her. Inside her.

“Well come on,” Maggie all but bellows from the kitchen, startling Jocelyn back to earth, “tea’s almost ready!” She leans heavily against the bannister, willing her heart rate to return to normal and the delicious tug pressing low in her abdomen to subside. Desperate for composure, she focuses in on a little crack at a joint in the old bannister. She forces her eyes to trace the entire length of the short, jagged line. It’s an old trick, learned long ago, and it still works. Compartments.

Exhaling, she heads for the kitchen.

“Sit.” Maggie pulls a chair out from the high table, and Jocelyn does as she’s told. She’s simultaneously too exhausted and too emotionally spent to do otherwise. “Here’s some water.” Maggie places a small glass down on the table and puts two tiny red pills in Jocelyn’s hand. “Here’s some ibuprofen.” Jocelyn’s brow furrows, but Maggie cuts her off: “Don’t you dare argue with me. You don’t want to be stiff in the morning.” She watches until Jocelyn swallows the tiny red pills.

“And…” turning to the counter, she brings over a single steaming mug and a small plate of biscuits, “here’s your tea.”

“None for you?”

“Nope. I’ve got to get home. Lil’s here. For the week-end,” she adds, by way of an explanation. Maggie lifts her coat from the back of the chair opposite, swinging it on to cover the awkward silence.

“Right. Of course.” Jocelyn chastises herself: She should have realized. “Please tell her I’m sorry.”

Smiling softly, Maggie presses a warm, firm hand to Jocelyn’s shoulder. “Ben will pick you up in the morning, yes?” Jocelyn silently nods her affirmation, taking a sip of tea. Maggie would offer to take over for Ben, but she can’t risk the perception of a conflict of interest: members of the news media should not be toting the Crown Prosecutor to and from the trial.

Impulsively, Jocelyn gives in to the yearning to cover Maggie’s hand with her own, and the touch of long, strong fingers and the thought of what they could do to her revives the throbbing in her centre. She can feel her face flushing, but she can’t tear her wide eyes from Maggie’s.

Maggie whips her hand away. Although she’s proud of how steadily she returns Jocelyn’s gaze, she knows this: it would not be a hardship to lean over and kiss her right now, to let her fingers dance tantalizingly along the collar of that beautiful silk blouse, to reach underneath for more. Maggie also knows that if she stays in this house for even one more second, she will. So, digging in her pocket for her car keys, she says as she goes, “Try to get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

***

 

When she hears the car pull into the driveway, Lil glances over at the digital display on Maggie’s side of the bed: 2.23. They have much to talk about, but Lil has no energy for it tonight. And Maggie has to be in court in Bournemouth for a 9.30 start. Tomorrow evening will be soon enough. It’s all piled up and waited this long, one more day won’t much matter. Besides, it will give her time to pack, to think about the right words.

In the driveway, Maggie turns off the car’s engine and headlights, but stays where she is. She knows she should go to bed, get at least a few hours’ sleep before she has to be up again. But she’s too wired. Her whole body is tingling, and there’s a heated pulse low in her belly. This is what Jocelyn does to her. Since that day all those years ago when she first saw her in action at The Old Bailey. Utter captivation. Coupled only later with profound love. And then deep despair. It hurts too much. To love someone who’s afraid to love you back.

And then there’s Lil. Sweet, lovely, patient Lil. Who found herself wrapped up in all this chaos. Since Danny. Maggie chuckles sardonically: She had assured Lil when they first started seeing each other that Broadchurch was idyllic. A quiet seaside town. Perfect for long, languorous weekends away from the hustle and bustle of Exeter. But barely four months into what seemed at the time a promising relationship with a smart, kind, beautiful, like-minded woman, the shit hit the fan, and it’s been one thing after another ever since. And, having never asked for any of it, Lil’s come to resent it.

Maggie shivers; it’s chilly and damp in the pre-dawn darkness. And much too quiet for her liking. Rubbing two fingers in between her eyebrows and up onto her forehead in an attempt to ease the tension that seems to have lodged itself there permanently, she suddenly feels existentially exhausted and can think only of sleep. She’s just plain tired of thinking. And of feeling.

Lil pretends to be asleep when Maggie finally crawls back into bed.

 

***

 

Having managed to get slightly ahead of the Friday afternoon traffic out of Bournemouth, Maggie is thrilled to have arrived home in time for a proper tea. For once. Ellie Miller got destroyed in the witness box today. It was dreadful to watch, so Maggie can only imagine how Ellie must have _felt_ up there, under such scrutiny, as her whole life got twisted into unrecognizable shapes.

Maggie will have to make sense of her handwritten notes about it all a bit later this evening, but she won’t have to go in to the office to do it. Which means pyjamas and wine while curled into her comfy chair, laptop on her knee! She can almost feel the fluffy socks already on her feet as she kicks off her shoes and drops her bag by the door, shedding the day’s tension along with her blazer.

Then she notices Lil’s suitcase, and she goes from relaxed to wary in an instant. She sighs, bracing herself for the thoroughly unpleasant conversation she’s been expecting for weeks. The conversation _she_ should have been the one to initiate weeks ago.

“Lil?” Maggie calls up the stairs while glancing into the living room.

“In here,” is the response from the kitchen.

Maggie heads down the hall. “I thought you were staying the week-end?” Lil is putting groceries away.

“No, I’m gonna head back.”

“But you just got here,” Maggie replies while Lil closes the pantry door. Still hovering at the threshold of the tiny kitchen, Maggie launches into an admittedly feeble attempt to persuade her to stay. “Look, I do have a bit of work tonight, but I think I can manage to take off the whole of tomorrow. We could drive to Weymouth. Pop in and out of the shops? Maybe go to a museum? Have dinner?” Maggie can hear herself performing somebody else’s script, as if they’re trapped in some mediocre made-for-TV movie.

Lil scoffs as she opens the refrigerator, recalling all the time she already spends behind the wheel, “The _last_ thing I want to do is drive to Weymouth.”

“Look, I’m sorry about last night—”

“Oh, Mags,” Lil begins, as she wrestles a head of cauliflower into the veggie drawer, “you know it’s about so much more than just last night. It’s the whole—” She stops abruptly, punctuating her frustration with a sharp shove of said drawer. She closes the fridge door. “I went shopping. There’s plenty to see you through the next few days.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

She shrugs. “I made a sandwich. For the drive. Yours is on the counter. And the kettle is ready when you are.”

“Thank you.” Maggie says, astonished. She is once again taken aback by Lil’s kindness. Here she is, breaking up with her; her suitcase is literally sitting by the front door. But, still, she’s bought groceries and made Maggie dinner. And Maggie feels like an absolute git. “Lil, I am sorry. For everything. I didn’t know it would be like this.”

“I know.” Lil stops crisscrossing the room to rest her hand fondly on Maggie’s forearm. “And I understand why you want to see it through, Mags, I really do. It’s one of the things I admire about you: your love of this town, your loyalty to the people here. I can’t pretend to understand it, but I admire it.”

She grabs the stepstool from its hook on the end of the row of cabinets. “But _I_ can’t do it. All the late nights, all this back and forth.” She unfolds it and sets it down before the dishwasher. “I mean, do you realize that the last time we actually went out. Just us. Together. Was to dinner after Jack Marshall’s funeral?” Lil rolls her eyes to underscore her sarcasm. “Very romantic.” She climbs up to retrieve an insulated lunch bag from the upper cabinet.

“It can’t have been that long!” Maggie runs through last autumn and winter in her head. “Has it?”

“Yup.” Stepping down, Lil accentuates her point with a slight arch of her brows and a purse of her lips as she folds up the stepstool and replaces it on its hooks at the end of the counter.

She’s right, of course. After Jack’s funeral last August, Maggie had been completely focused on solving the mystery of Susan Wright. And then after Joe was arrested, there was Danny’s funeral, and Maggie basically spent the rest of autumn recovering from all that chaos while simultaneously trying to maintain the status quo of putting out the _Echo_ every week under increasing budgetary pressure from corporate. There was a lot of wine drinking and on-line binge watching of some fairly terrible American telly. She was fucking knackered.

Lil was only in Broadchurch a few weekends and in between terms, and she didn’t come for the holidays, which she always spends with her family in Kent. And although Maggie had been warmly invited, she couldn’t go. Work. And, she has to admit, she didn’t really want to. The winter months were all about covering the City Council bi-election and Joe’s impending plea hearing. Then the shit hit the fan again when Joe surprised everyone by entering a “not guilty” plea. And here they are.

Maggie shakes her head. “Jesus, Lil. What a cock up I’ve made of this. I’m so sorry.”

“You’re just trying to burn too many candles at once.” Lil is at the counter, packing her dinner into the lunch bag: sandwich, apple, and… She pauses to head back to the fridge for the candy bar she stashed on the top shelf. …Chocolate! Because she bloody well deserves it. “You’re so absorbed in your work all the time, and I just feel left out.” She turns around for a moment to look at Maggie. “But it’s not all about you. It’s me, too.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Maggie can’t help but ridicule Lil’s unoriginality. They really must be in some kind of bad TV movie if all literature tutor Lil can come up with is this banal cliché of a let down line. Maggie rolls her eyes.

“Alright, I know.” Lil laughs at her use of the hackneyed phrase. “But truly, Mags, I’m a city girl. Always have been. I can’t do this back of beyond thing. As beautiful as it is here. And now, with Jocelyn in the frame…”

“We’re just friends,” Maggie retorts much, much too quickly. And she knows it. She doesn’t recognize her own voice.

Lil arches her eyebrows suggestively. She’s never pegged Maggie as someone inclined to self-delusion. “No, you’re not, Mags,” she says simply, zipping up the lunch bag and putting it on the table. “I’m taking that, by the way. I’m also taking the first edition of _The Well of Loneliness_ that we bought in Corfe Castle that time.”

Maggie nods. She’s happy to give Lil pretty much anything at this point, given what an asshole she’s been to her. An insulated lunch bag and Radclyffe Hall’s groundbreaking lesbian novel seem a small price to pay. “Nothing’s happened,” Maggie assures her, but the statement is also an admission.

“I’m not saying otherwise. But you _do_ love her. Have done for a long time now, I suspect.”

Maggie exhales and leans heavily against the back of the nearest chair. Fuck. 

“I’m leaving anyway, eyes wide open, with no hard feelings,” Lil puts her hand on Maggie’s shoulder, “so if you want to talk about it…”

“It’s… complicated.”

“You love her.”

“Yes.” 

“Then it’s not at all complicated.”

Maggie grunts derisively. By way of response, Lil pulls out the chair opposite the one Maggie is leaning on and sits in it, gesturing for Maggie to do the same. She does, albeit reluctantly.

“Look, you’ve been in love with her for at _least_ the entire time I’ve known you, all the time you and I were supposed to be building a life together. So I feel like you sort of owe me an explanation.” Lil shrugs. “Because, honestly, I just don’t get it. She seems rather aloof for your taste, a bit cold. And quite needy. What’s the attraction?”

“She didn’t used to be that way. I mean, she was a bit wary of me to start. Because I’m a journalist. And she’s definitely an introvert, maybe even a bit shy. Which makes her seem rather prickly. But, really, she’s all bark and no bite. And once you get to know her…”

“How many people make it that far.”

“Not many, I suspect,” Maggie admits.

“So, what was your secret?”

Maggie’s eyes light up as she tells the story of how she came first to know, and then to love, Jocelyn, recalling that time she first saw her argue a case in the Old Bailey more than twenty-five years ago and those heady days of Jocelyn’s summer vacation ten years later, just after Maggie had moved to Broadchurch. She tells Lil of fish and chips on the Broadchurch pier, of a warm Sunday afternoon spent on Jocelyn’s boat, of long letters and even longer phone calls as summer turned into autumn. She tells Lil about that wet October weekend she spent in London, of a Christmas bauble the colour of her eyes, of woodsmoke, champagne, and fireworks on the last New Year’s Eve of the twentieth century. And a warm, gentle, promising goodnight kiss. Of unbridled bliss followed by deep, cutting grief as the new millennium dawned bright and blue over Dorset.

Working hard to quell tears she thought she cried out forever ago, Maggie murmurs, “She left that same afternoon. She didn’t tell me. She didn’t even say goodbye.”

Lil reaches across the small table to place a comforting hand on Maggie’s forearm. “Did you try to get in touch?”

Maggie nods. “I called the flat a couple times. I left a message with her clerk. I agonized over a letter.” She snickers, momentarily nostalgic, “Remember snail mail?”

“Indeed. I do. Quite fondly, in fact.”

“I thought if I could just get her to talk to me… But I never heard back. She just disappeared into London. And I wasn’t about to beg. I was furious with her.”

“Not to mention heartbroken.”

Maggie is well and truly crying now, slumped in her chair, shoulders rounded. This is not the brave, brassy journalist Lil met eighteen months ago. This past year, will all its shit and chaos, really has taken its toll on her.

“I just never knew what happened. That was the hardest part.”

“Mags, I think _you_ happened. I think she fell in love. She wasn’t out, maybe not even to herself, she didn’t see it coming, and I bet it scared the hell out of her.” Lil takes breath. “Bloody emotionally immature, if you ask me. It’s not like you were teenagers, fumbling around.” Lil sits gruffly back in her chair. “I could give her such a bollocking! She led you on, and,” Lil bangs her index finger on the table to mark the enumeration of the worst of Jocelyn’s sins, “she treated you like crap. Let’s be clear about that.”

“I know,” Maggie nods. “She did. I’m clear.” Maggie leans forward, forearms on the table in front of her, eyes hard. “I’m not a fool, Lil. I tried to let her go. I thought I had. Honestly, I did. It’s just lately, since the trial…”

“When did you first reconnect again?”

“Well, I became quite close with her mum. She was a botany prof. At Exeter, actually.”

“Really?!”

“Mmmn. We both loved our rambles along the cliffs, and we ran into each other often enough that we just started making plans to walk together. I so enjoyed her company! She had a fantastic sense of humour. She helped me settle in here in those first few years, helped me get to know and understand the community. And it was she, Veronica is her name, who toted me back and forth to my chemo treatments in Bournemouth.”

“Ah! So _that_ Veronica is also Jocelyn’s mum! It’s all starting to make sense, now.” The interconnectedness of this place is the rural Dorset version of The Chart on the _L-Word_. Everyone’s, like, barely six degrees of separation away from being actually related. Lil stifles a shudder. God, she really does hate it here. 

Maggie continues. “And then she started forgetting our walks. I did what I could to remind her, to keep an eye on her, to pop over with dinner a few times a week, just to make sure she was doing alright up there all by herself. But I’m not her daughter, and I didn’t want to step on any toes…”

Lil nods a silent understanding.

“That went on for about a year. Until one evening, all hell broke loose. Fire trucks and an ambulance were up at the house. And, you know up on the cliff top…”

“I bet the whole town could see _something_ was going on.”

“Exactly. I just about killed myself running up there. Turns out she’d left a couple of burners on, and all the windows were shut. One of the neighbors had called in, reporting a gas leak. The paramedics found her passed out cold on the couch. She was incredibly lucky, but she was in hospital for several days. They let me ride in the ambulance with her, but because I’m not family, there wasn’t much more I could do. Except contact next of kin.”

Lil knows where this is going. “Crikey, Mags.”

“Yup. Lucky me, I got the job of calling Jocelyn.”

“Jesus,” Lil exhales, not in the least envious of _that_ particular conversation. “What the fuck did you say?”

“Not much. I told her what happened, told her she had to come home, that her mum needed some support, and decisions needed to be made about long-term care.” 

“And that was the first time you had spoken with her since she left?”

Maggie nods. “It was a short but apparently effective conversation; not five hours later, she was with me in the cottage hospital waiting room, sitting with doctors, asking for help with care homes and whatnot.”

“When was this?”

“I don’t know. Just before Christmas, about six years ago now.”

“Fuck!” Lil does the math in her head. “You and Jocelyn weren’t in touch for _eight years_?! After all that flirting and heavy breathing?”

“Really, Lil,” Maggie scowls, “And you accuse _me_ of being obsessed with my work. Jocelyn and I are not a short story to analyse with your undergrads.”

“Ooh, but you could be!” Lil steeples her fingers, performing her best impression of a crafty creative genius. “Such delectable angst, such unresolved tension. It has all the makings of some really compelling queer erotica. Plus, you’d have the old, wrinkled lesbian market cornered! It’s brill.”

“Cut it out.” But Maggie can’t help smiling. A little bit.

“Right. Seriously, though, in eight bloody years, you never ran into each other around town, or… I mean, you were spending so much time with her mum, how could you _not_ have seen each other?”

“Well, until she moved back here three years ago, she only visited Broadchurch twice a year: Once for two weeks at the beginning of July and then over the Christmas holidays. Jocelyn is nothing if not predictable.” Maggie smirks, rolling her eyes affectionately. “It was fairly easy to stay out of her way. I really didn’t have to work too hard at it.

“I mean, I did run into her once a couple of years before that. Quite literally, in front of the bookshop on the High Street. I was heading back to work from who knows where, walking by, looking down towards the harbour at something, and she was coming out of the shop. I slammed right into her. I felt like a fucking idiot, made some kind of blathering apology, and kept right on moving. I suspect she did her best to avoid the High Street after that.”

“Oh, for goodness sake, Mags! The more you tell me, the more I want to knock _both_ your heads together.” Exasperated, Lil throws her hands up in the air, but then she’s quiet for a moment. What the actual fuck with these two? “Look, I say: just go for it. Life’s way too short.”

Maggie shakes her head in disagreement. “I can’t forgive her, Lil. I have patience for neither cowardice nor closets. You know this about me. I can’t forgive her for being afraid, for running away. It’s her move.”

“Love is not a game of chess, Mags.”

“But if she cared that much, she’d have been brave. Don’t you think?”

“What if she couldn’t be? What if she didn’t know how?”

Maggie’s having none of this, and she splutters, rather more dismissively that she intends, “Jocelyn Knight sends shivers down the spines of criminal defense barristers everywhere. How could she not _know how to be brave_?”

“Maybe she never learned, at least not when it came to who she was allowed to love. Think about it in context: Even though Jocelyn’s not that much older than we are, those few years probably mattered quite a lot when she was in her teens in terms of how comfortable she ever felt she could be with her own sexuality. I mean, she grew up _here_.” Lil gestures meaningfully toward the window over the sink, taking in all of Broadchurch with a sweep of her arm.

Lil catches the scowl forming on Maggie’s face and quickly clarifies. “I don’t mean that in a negative sense. Necessarily. But I shouldn’t have to remind _you_ about the charming conversation you had with that ancient vicar when you first moved here. Or about that rape threat last year. Imagine being a kid growing up in that kind of homophobic environment.”

Maggie quietly concedes the point.

“You and I, we’re from cities. There’s just more acceptance for different kinds of people, different ways of living life. And for sure there’s more anonymity. That’s not to say life’s perfect. We’ve definitely caught our fair share of sexist, homophobic shit.” Lil checks in with Maggie, who nods in robust agreement.

Lil continues, “But everybody’s in everybody’s business around here. And even if her parents were supportive – and that’s a big ‘if’ given the time and place, can you imagine Jocelyn being able to be fully out, fully herself, in a tiny town like this? There’s _still_ no queer community, plenty of bigotry, and no role models to show the way. Think what it must have been like, poor queer, little baby Jocelyn trying to find herself in 1950s Broadchurch? No fucking thanks.”

“But she was up at Oxford by ’64,” Maggie counters, “Surely she must’ve… had her horizons broadened. I mean, all the student activism, the anti-war protests, all that ‘free love.’ Even Malcolm X spoke there that year!” Maggie’s always regretted having been born just a few years too late to have been at uni herself in the ‘60s. The early ‘70s had their own magic, of course, and she and her comrades at Manchester made some important things happen for the labour movement and women’s rights, but the 1960s is what’s in the history books.

“Mmmnn, maybe. But not if she was laser focused on her studies. And from what you’ve told me about her, that seems more than plausible. That’s something you and she definitely have in common,” jokes Lil, aiming for levity, and getting a reluctant, concessionary smirk from Maggie in response. “ _And_ if she was aiming for silk—this here is the kicker, I think—it’s likely somebody, somewhere warned her early on that to be a woman in a man’s job, you have to be above censure, you have to do everything better, you have to be perfect. You learnt the same lesson, and so did I. But our jobs, our industries, the places where we’ve chosen to work, have, I suspect, tended to be rather more willing to change with the times than the Inns of Court will ever be.”

“But, Lil, I can’t forgive her for making me afraid, too. I started to second-guess all the time we spent together, all the letters, all the phone calls. She made me doubt my own heart.”

“I get that, Mags, I really do. And it sucks. But what does it matter now? You love her, I suspect she loves you, and,” Lil jokes, in an attempt to lighten the mood, “none of us is getting any younger, you know.” Maggie snorts, and Lil looks to the digital display on the microwave. “Which reminds me, I really should be heading out. Because I have no intention of spending the rest of _my_ short life stuck in traffic.”

She rises, grabbing her packed dinner with one hand and pushing the chair back under the table with the other. “Plus, there’s a feminist spoken word festival opening at the Phoenix this weekend. Never know who I might meet.”

Lil arches her eyebrows and winks outrageously before heading for the front door, and Maggie cannot help but laugh as she follows, grabbing the suitcase. Taking the heaviest burden seems to Maggie the least she can do at this moment.

Lil slips into her shoes, puts her dinner into her rucksack, and tosses her coat over her arm. As she opens the front door, she suddenly remembers, pointing to the little basket on the hall table, “Oh, I tossed my copies of your house and car keys in there.”

Maggie can only nod her acknowledgment as, suitcase in hand, she follows Lil out to her car in the driveway. As the boot opens, she hoists the bag up, over, and in while Lil arranges things in the backseat. By the time Maggie closes the boot again, Lil’s standing with the driver’s side door open, ready to go.

Maggie walks over to her. “Thanks, Lil. For everything. And I am sorry.”

“Hey, we gave it a try. And we even had a bit of fun.” They were, indeed, quite well matched for sex. When they got around to it.

Maggie grins conspiratorially. “We did, didn’t we?”

“I’d certainly say so. Every once in awhile.” Lil laughs before shrugging her shoulders, “Our timing was off, is all.” She gives Maggie a quick hug and a friendly peck on the cheek and, clasping her forearms firmly, is suddenly serious again as she makes sure to land her point: “Times change. People change. Talk to Jocelyn.”

Maggie tilts her head and shrugs her shoulders. She’s not willing to make any promises.

Lil turns to get in the car. “Take care of yourself.”

“You, too.”

“And of her, yes?”

Maggie nods, and Lil is off, back to Devon.


End file.
